# $File: //member/autrijus/Class-PseudoHash/README $ $Author: autrijus $
# $Revision: #3 $ $Change: 2351 $ $DateTime: 2001/11/13 15:06:49 $

This is the README file for Class::PseudoHash, a module to
emulate pseudo-hash behaviour via overload.

* Installation

Class::PseudoHash uses the standard perl module install process:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

* Copyright

Copyright 2001 by Autrijus Tang <autrijus@autrijus.org>,

All rights reserved.  You can redistribute and/or modify
this bundle under the same terms as Perl itself.

See <http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>.

* Introduction

Due to its impact on overall performance of ordinary hashes,
pseudo-hashes are deprecated in perl v5.8, and will cease to exist in
perl v5.10. By then, the "fields" pragma is supposed to change to use a
different implementation.

Although the Pseudo-hashes: Using an array as a hash entry in the
perlref manpage recommends against using the first-element-as-index
behaviour, there are undoubtly many brave souls still writing such code,
and fearing that the elimination of pseudo-hashes will require a massive
rewrite of their programs.

As one of the primary victims, I tried to devise a drop-in solution that
could emulate exactly the same semantic of pseudo-hashes, thus keeping
all my legacy code intact. So "Class::PseudoHash" was born.

Please refer to the POD text for synopsis and details on usage.